Uproar in Quebec over hijab poem
WASHINGTON: A poem in defence of the hijab but full of scorn for non-Muslim women has created a furore in Quebec, where the small town of Herouxville had made it clear that veiled women were not welcome.
The poem in French by a Lebanese Muslim was published in an Arabic paper and is now doing the rounds of the Internet.
The poem says: “My veil is not a kerchief/It’s my skin/My modesty, my dignity, my respect/And if you, old-stock immigrant woman/You have neither faith nor law/And you spent your youth drunk/And went from one male to the next/That’s not the case for me.”
Liberal Muslim leader Tarek Fatah condemned the poem, saying it denounced non-Muslim women as “godless and depraved”.
The writer, Haydar Moussa, defended his work as a cry of pain by a devout Muslim woman hurt by anti-Islamic prejudice. khalid hasan